Posted on 05/14/2002 9:37:13 AM PDT by gcallah
Did anyone watch the Discovery channel on MegaTsunamis over the weekend? Basically, a huge chunk of the island of La Plama in the Canaries is in danger of collapsing into the sea, which would set off a tidal wave washing 12 miles inland on the east coast of the US.
I've heard from a contact in the Army that there are serious worries that bin Laden could try to set off a nuke on La Palma that would trigger the collapse.
Should Discovery have been allowed to show this? Should the US station troops on La Palma?
Does this mean that vacationing at the Jersey shore is a bad idea this summer?
I would say that the notion of OBL doing something so stupid is off the mark, but as far as the notion of a mega-tsunami from natural causes, I wouldn't be so sure. According to a BBC documentary (which I'm sure is the source of the Discovery piece), if a chunk of LaPalma or some other large island (like, say, Montserrat) fell off into the ocean, large scale destruction would result.
Scattered across the world’s oceans are a handful of rare geological time-bombs. Once unleashed they create an extraordinary phenomenon, a gigantic tidal wave, far bigger than any normal tsunami, able to cross oceans and ravage countries on the other side of the world. Only recently have scientists realised the next episode is likely to begin at the Canary Islands, off North Africa, where a wall of water will one day be created which will race across the entire Atlantic ocean at the speed of a jet airliner to devastate the east coast of the United States. America will have been struck by a mega-tsunami.
Back in 1953 two geologists travelled to a remote bay in Alaska looking for oil. They gradually realised that in the past the bay had been struck by huge waves, and wondered what could have possibly caused them. Five years later, they got their answer. In 1958 there was a landslide, in which a towering cliff collapsed into the bay, creating a wave half a kilometre high, higher than any skyscraper on Earth. The true destructive potential of landslide-generated tsunami, which scientists named "Mega-tsunami", suddenly began to be appreciated. If a modest-sized landslide in Alaska could create a wave of this size, what havoc could a really huge landslide cause?
Scientists now realise that the greatest danger comes from large volcanic islands, which are particularly prone to these massive landslides. Geologists began to look for evidence of past landslides on the sea bed, and what they saw astonished them. The sea floor around Hawaii, for instance, was covered with the remains of millions of years’ worth of ancient landslides, colossal in size.
But huge landslides and the mega-tsunami that they cause are extremely rare - the last one happened 4,000 years ago on the island of Réunion. The growing concern is that the ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few metres towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thousand million tonnes, will fall into the Atlantic ocean. What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.
Yes.
The first article on this subject appeared in another source--it was a scientific concern proposition--this happened once several thousand years ago and the result was--now the sea is washing out the ridge formed by the last collapse--at some point in the future, it could happen again naturally with the following consequence. I don't remember the article as identifying the Canaries--I thought it was on the edge of the African Continent rather than the islands.
Could you induce the event at this point? Maybe. Depends on how much explosive force you could manufacture.
How did you like the Discovery program broadcast just before this one? It was about a supervolcano sitting under Yellowstone NP. How big is it? About as big as the whole park! The last time it went off, about 600,000 years ago, it buried most of North America with a couple meters of ash. Oh yeah, it seems to go off every 600,000 to I think 800,000 years. While wiping most, if not all life on the NA continent, it would probably kill off most life on the planet due to the amount of sun light blocking ash in the atmosphere for a long time afterward. And I used to think people who went into volcano cones were crazy. I've been to YNP a few times, and camped there a couple nights.
Me? I'm just hoping to last for another 60 years! :-)
This thread is hereby awarded the first "Elvis Bin Laden" award of the day.
Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean."Let's put the Wash back in Washington."
Based on the "few hours" thing the wave would have to be traveling an average of 400 mph to get to the U.S. coast that fast. If a hurricane can't sustain more than 200 mph winds for too long then how could a wave which would be meeting greater resistance sustain 400+mph?
As to the comparison with the recent huge chunk of ice that broke off from Antarctica: the chunk of ice merely split off from the mainland. It did not plunge from a great height and disturb the volume of the ocean, or create a massive shockwave in the ocean.
Bold talk from someone in Texas...not sitting near Cape Cod.
I'll pass on the rinse job, thank you very much.
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